Christmas - one year anniversary - 2023!!!!
It’s been a while since I wrote - I could write this one for pages and pages but I’ll do my best to keep it brief. It's been a fun December and January is already 3 weeks in…since last writing (Thanksgiving and trip to USA) we enjoyed our first Christmas in Spain, learned about the Caga Tio, and rang in a new year. We celebrated our one-year anniversary living in Barcelona and I am now on the plane back to Spain after a 12-day stent back in the midwest (85% fun, 15% work!).
Quick Hits
Hiking in the mountains in December is amazing! Great to be so close…but I do miss shoveling snow (the 2-3x per year I was able to do in KC).
A year in a foreign country with your family really makes you think. I can’t even sleep lately with all going through my mind.
Meaningful relationships and life experiences are really what matter in life (well good wine and sex too). Being purposeful with both is a must.
Our kids are amazing. Completely reboot their entire lives (location, home, language, cuisine, friends, school, etc) and they are just amazing. Being proud doesn’t explain it.
I’ve not played Padel in over 2 months. Trying to let my achilles heal and gdamn, it’s been ‘busy’ (you know I hate that word) with holidays and travel. I miss that crew of guys and that amazing sport. Hoping to get back in February but the weather may push to March!
Its getting to be Calcot (mountain onion) season! I’ll write more on this next time!
Ashley in Germany
Ashley went to Germany with a few of her girlfriends from the US (Thanks Alison and Tiff!!!) in early December for the Christmas Markets. She has wanted to go for quite some time so it was great she was able to get her friends here and fly to Munich for a week tour of the markets. They hit 6 different markets in 5 days - had some amazing food, and of course, tons of gluhwein (hot mulled wine). I think it’s a new trip for her yearly with some girlfriends (I have zero desire of touring around Germany freezing my ass off shopping for Christmas shit outside in tents (but the hot wine is delicious)!
Our first Christmas in Spain
It would have been easy to miss all our family back in the US during the Christmas holiday but our friends here are so amazing. I’ll not take the time to write all the holiday traditions here but I do encourage you to look them up. We kept our tradition of a tree and holiday decor at our apartment (Ashley did a great job of going zero to decorated with the help of the holiday markets mentioned above!) and opening one present on Christmas Eve. We were invited to Marta’s parent’s house that night for traditional food, amazing wine, and some of the best people and conversations. Christmas day brought Santa (yes, Ells still believes and this year Hayes helped move the elf on the shelf!) and presents. We kept another tradition of our pizza contest and hosted one of our Sarria (our town) friends’ family for that after a mountain hike (amazing hiking on Christmas day!). Most Spanish people do not do tons of presents on Christmas day - see below for Three Kings day…
Kicking off 2023 right…skiing, friends, and a log that shits.
After Christmas day in Barcelona, we left on the 26th to meet friends in Baqueria. It’s a ski town about 3.5 hours away in the Spanish Pyrenees. I’d been before with Hayes but not Ash or Ells….we had an amazing time with great friends! The kids spent nearly every day skiing. Tough news many of you may have heard - Ashley tore her knee up quite badly one of the days skiing. I’ll not tell the story but she can if she wants (she can always write here but says ‘no thanks’. She likely doesn’t want to show me up with her writing skillz). We visited a few towns close by, ate and drank like Kings and Queens, and enjoyed tons of time with friends and just the 4 of us as well. We then spent New Year’s Eve at a friend’s place before we left back for Barcelona on the 2nd. The kids had that next week off (2.5 weeks off for Christmas break!) so we crushed mountain bikes, and spend another long weekend away from Barcelona in the tiniest town I’d ever seen. 5 buildings and maybe 12 people lived there. We rented a great place and the kids spent all day biking through the vineyards (it was in Penedes, one of the wine regions in Catalunya).
But before we went to Torrebusqueta we did celebrate Three Kings Day. It’s always January 6th and is well bigger than Christmas here. TONS of presents and the Caga Tio. Now, you gotta watch the videos below and read the description I’ll link to. I’m not kidding…it’s a log we bought and fed for a few weeks before bed. On three kings day the kids beat it with sticks and sing a special song, when the song is over it shits presents. Yes, it defecates presents. Usually, a few rounds of singing (aka beatings) and shits then it’s all over when it shits an onion. I’m so not making it up. The parade put on by Barcelona for Three Kings was the best ever I’ve seen….it was like a 2-hour broadway production moving down the street. Ashley didn’t make it downtown with her knee, but I took plenty of pics and videos (as I always do) for her to see what it was like…
LINK - ROUND 1
Back to the US again!
I went back to Kansas City for a few days of seeing my pops, and a day of work meetings, then canceled the Breckenridge boys trip to go to our cabin in the Black Hills for a few more days of work and to check out our cabin (I’d not been in over a year). My best buddies from High School (read: morons with funny-ass stories who I like to drink too much with) joined for a few days - we had so much fun….skiing, snow-mobiles, and a ton of cards, vodka, beers, and some funny stories I’ll not write here…it is probably one of the highlights for me this year (yeah it’s only January!) - I needed some Brotime and they delivered….while I was away Ashley’s mother Linda and her hubs Mitch came to Barcelona. I missed most of their trip but will see them for dinner before you read this!
Up next -
I am landing on Tuesday the 24th, taking Linda, Mitch, and Ashley out for dinner a few hours later. I have Wednesday to get things in order to leave on Thursday January 26th for my 2nd annual ASB Dads ski weekend. Just the dads and kids. Ladies stay home! (I think Ashley is going to the mountains with a friend but some of the other wives are hitting Madrid and Rome!). We are actively planning our travel for the next few months - it’s hard not knowing Ashley’s exact prognosis or 100% recovery day….but we do have Ski Week (Semana Blanca) in February (yes, the school takes off an entire week to allow all teachers and kids to go skiing). There are at least 6-7 ski resorts within a 4-5 hours drive (and tons in the Alps and Dolomites a short flight away). We then have March totally open before Spring Break (Semana Santa) in April. We had an amazing trip to Morocco planned but it’s just going to be too much hiking and walking for Ashley so we are going to pivot to something else. One thing we learned last year is March and April can be rainy and cloudy…so we will need some sun!
On another note - we have tons of friends and some family coming in over the next few months! (Yay for Jan (my friend and colleague), Kent and Tracy (Ashley’s aunt and uncle), then Kris (a buddy), then Poppa and Nanna (Spain trip THREE for them!), and then Team Patrick (my buddy and his family) to join! FYI I am putting together a ‘Barcelona what you need to know’ for anyone that wants to come (or just to read another shitty piece of crap writing from me). I’ll put a link here and send it out when it’s done!
Well there you go, just terrible at keeping this one ‘brief’ but we just have so much going on I want to capture it for 65-year-old Jon, 64-year-old Ashley, 31-year-old Hayes, and 28-year-old-Ellory (who this blog is really for!). Sorry….if you read this far hopefully you were entertained!
Oh, one last thing I just found out about today - our visas were renewed! We really weren’t worried…but it’s nice to have it formally done through 2025 (we are committed through the 2024/25 school year as of this writing).